Appeal regarding Illegal Persecution of Civic Activists Maksym and Kostyantyn Latsyba

To the President of Ukraine
Viktor YANUKOVYCH

To the Head of Parliament of Ukraine
Volodymyr RYBAK

To the General Prosecutor of Ukraine
Viktor PSHONKA

To the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
Vitaliy ZAHARCHENKO

To Members of Parliament of Ukraine

We are writing to you in connection with an illegal criminal prosecution of civic activists Maksym and Kostyantyn Latsyba. The following circumstances give reasons to affirm that the criminal proceedings is nothing but a politically motivated prosecution for Latsybas’ civic activities, including their participation in a protest rally near president’s office at Mezhyhirya. This is unacceptable in any civilized and democratic country.

In May-July 2013 Maksym and Kostyantyn Latsyba were repeatedly called and visited by investigators from Brovary and Boryspil police stations in connection with the opening of criminal proceedings related to cars robbery. Police seems to have a video with a car driving off a robbery. The number plate of the car is similar to the number plate of Maksym Latsyba’s car. Meanwhile, police didn’t afford any evidence that the car was there at the scenes of the crime. Police representatives try to seize the Latsyba’s vehicle. It creates a risk of further falsification of the case. Investigator of Brovary town police station Hadaychuk Sergiy Oleksandrovych tried to force Kostyantyn Latsyba to call unknown phone numbers in order to “solve” the case.

We believe that the criminal proceedings are only used to obstruct social activities of Maksym and Kostyantyn Latsyba. With Latsybas’ case serving an illustrative example they also want to intimidate activists, suppress all public activity, and discredit civic activists in the eyes of society.

Given the facts above, we demand:

• from the Parliament of Ukraine to initiate a temporary investigative commission to investigate harassment of Maksym Latsyba, Kostyantyn Latsyba and other participants of a peaceful assembly near Mezhyhirya by law enforcement agencies;
• from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate the legitimacy of the proceedings and bring responsible official to liability.

We also appeal to the public, journalists, lawyers, and civil society activists to be solidary in support of each other.

Please, sign the appeal online following the link

 Maksym Latsyba is a Head of Civil Society Program of Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research and a leading expert in the field of public law for civil society. He initiated a series of laws aimed at building civil society, including the Law of Ukraine "On Public Associations", "On Access to Public Information", "On charity and Charitable Organizations", etc.

Kostyantyn Latsyba is an expert in the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research. He is engaged in development of non-governmental organizations and public networks. He is also an activist of a political party Democratic Alliance.